


The Truth About Haunted Houses

by terminallybored



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen, Horror, Mild Gore, Sheriff Stilinski's Name is John, stay away from haunted houses kids, you might find a real one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-27
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-10-31 05:23:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20787296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/terminallybored/pseuds/terminallybored
Summary: There is a house on the Beacon Hills preserve that sits and rots. It's a dangerous house all on its own, old and burned and far away from the nearest help. But there's also a rumor of something inside the house that was supposed to leave a long time ago.





	The Truth About Haunted Houses

**Author's Note:**

> Day 5 of Laura Hale Appreciation Week: From the Other Side

There’s a strange majesty that time and fiction have assigned to haunted houses. They simply last forever. If a place is big enough or old enough, there will be a haunted house. Something will stand on some street corner or on a lonely road beyond the street lights, spooky and unkempt, often empty and decaying. There is the understanding that there is something rotten inside, and it will withstand attempts to purge it. Leave it alone. Don’t look too long or poke at it, and it very well may sit quietly.

But that’s not quite true. The truth about haunted houses is that the world does try to get rid of them. Homeowners’ associations and contractors and neighborhood developers all try to get rid of them. The world is hostile to things that are ugly an unprofitable.

The truth is that the houses fight back.

* * *

It’s the fourth time in six months that Peter has had to submit to the indignity of a town hall meeting.

Mrs. Weinstein has been sobbing at the microphone for twelve minutes. Her husband stands stoically at her side with an arm around her as she blubbers out a halting story that most of the sparse gathering in the gymnasium can’t understand. Every time her voice hits a hysterical pitch (often), the squeal of feedback cuts off the words, and she doesn’t bother to repeat them. She’s upset. Upset about ‘the woman in the house.’

“Sheriff, council members,” Mr. Weinstein says solemnly, His wife has turned her head to cry into his shoulder, either finished with her story or too emotionally spent to continue. “That house is a menace. It needs to go, before anyone else ends up like my girl.”

The sheriff, seated at a card table set up in the middle of the gym, makes a subtle wince at the contents of the folder in front of him. That means medical photos, Peter assumes. Yes, stepping through rotted floorboards probably created a very nasty wound indeed. Quite the sob story.

“I think we’ve devoted enough time to this subject lately,” huffs Dennis Montgomery, member of the town council. He mops at his forehead with his handkerchief from the heat of the stagnant air in the gym. It’s after hours and they’re lucky the school even left the door unlocked for them. Fans have been locked up tight for the evening. “We keep meeting about that death trap in the woods. It’s high time we just got rid of it.” 

“Is it too much work to tackle the hazing problem in this town?” Peter asks, not moving from his spot where he’s lounging in the bleachers, legs splayed indecently for someone in a school. “You really need to blame my house because some of our upstanding children are raising little sociopaths?”

“Mr. Hale-” the sheriff begins, but Montgomery cuts him off. He’s been waiting for this moment. He waits for this moment every goddamn meeting.

“The council would like to remind the sheriff and Mr. Hale that it is _not_, in fact, his house,” he says, puffing himself up in his folded chair at the council’s card table. “The deed in in the name of Hale family members who have chosen to leave this matter to our judgement.”

“If my nephew came running back home every time you lot wanted to build on Hale land, he’d never be allowed to leave town,” Peter snorts. “So do we get to talk about how Miss Weinstein came trespassing on private property because someone higher in the school pecking order was feeling bitchy?” Because the girl was new. Or ugly. Or talked back to the wrong person. Or tried to flirt with the wrong person. The reasons were as varied as they were pointless.

“Her leg!” Mrs. Weinstein sobs, clutching her husband.

“Will heal.” Peter manages not to sneer when he says it.

“Okay, everyone calm down,” the sheriff says, raising his voice to be heard, but keeping it level and calm. Like a good non-threatening authority figure. “Mr. Hale. I know this is a difficult position. Is there any way you can get ahold of Derek? His name is on the paperwork.”

“Do you think I would keep attending these esteemed meetings if I could make Derek do it instead?”

John winces a little at Peter’s patented ‘you idiot’ tone. “That doesn’t leave us a lot of options.”

“That house is an attractive nuisance and children are going to continue to get hurt!” Montgomery pounds the table with a thick fist. “If the owner isn’t going to take responsibility, we have people willing to do so.”

“Oh yes, I know.” Peter turns sharp eyes on the Chad with the generic brand of a Winning Smile plastered on his face in the front row of the bleachers. “The developer who has a brother-in-law on the council.” One of the mousier men at the end of the table folds in on himself a little. “I’d like to wager everyone on the council is due for a kickback on that. I suggest you all compare prizes and see who they thought they could get the cheapest.”

“Mr. Hale, I completely understand you concerns,” the Chad says, smoothing his tie down. Peter doesn’t miss the clench in his jaw. He savors it. “But I can assure you that your family will be very fairly compensated for the land, and allowed a generous amount of time to remove any remaining items from the house.”

“Nothing has been decided,” John says firmly, a rare reminder for Peter that he only pretends to be an idiot. He knows who the real threat in this gym is.

It is decided, though, over a painfully bureaucratic hour in which everyone on the council already agreed but wanted his moment to wave his dick. In an overwhelming majority, the council votes that Derek has forfeited his right to a say in the process, and that the house will come down. The land will be cleared and a brand new shopping mall will be coming in 18 short months. Montgomery is positively preening as he slaps his hands down on the table and pushes himself up.

“I, for one, think we’ve done excellent work tonight in making Beacon Hills a little safer. The sooner that wreck is gone, the better.”

Peter ambles down the bleachers, watching in the corner of his eye as the council members fall all over themselves as they shake hands and commend each other on a job well done. The Chad stands on the fringes, that same bland smile firmly in place. Peter claps him on the shoulder and only keeps his claws in because John is watching him warily.

“Make sure you’re careful not to run on the upper floors. They did a nasty job on the Weinstein girl’s leg.”

“I’m sure I won’t be running away from some creaky floorboards,” the Chad says, smile turning just a little less friendly as he looks Peter up and down, likely deciding that he could take him in a fight.

“It wasn’t floorboards,” Mrs. Weinstein hisses savagely from her spot on the bleachers where she and her husband sensibly wait out the mass exodus of foot traffic. “My Marnie doesn’t jump at shadows. Don’t you go into the house alone, you hear?”

The Chad seems taken aback by the idea that someone in this meeting wasn’t angling the bring the house down for his shiny new mall. “I don’t really believe in ghosts, ma’am. I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

“Never alone,” Mrs. Weinstein repeats, standing when her husband does. “Alone is when the woman under the bed gets you.”

The Chad watches the couple leave and shakes Peter’s hand off him, adjusting his shoulders back into his Confident stance. “Never saw a grown woman who believed in ghosts stories before,” he says to Peter, because Peter is the only one left to listen and he needs to re-assert himself. “I’ve taken down plenty of haunted houses before.”

Peter just smiles at him. It doesn’t reach his eyes. “No, you haven't.”

* * *

The sun is starting to hang low in the sky when the Chad turns his Mercedes-Benz onto the dirt road that leads into the woods. There’s a trail of crushed underbrush and snapped branches where the contractor came through with his truck earlier, so it’s easy enough to navigate. Whatever concern he might feel normally over the daunting sounds of vegetation scraping his undercarriage, it's muted by the intermittent buzzing of his phone. Messages flash across the screen in his center console.

[I needed those papers by 6. -Hilda]

[Rogan is pissed. Where are the specs? -Hilda]

[We can't even start the demolition contracts without them. -Hilda]

“I told you I had to go back for them,” the Chad mutters, jabbing his finger at the screen until the message closes. Her harping at him hasn't yet made the missing folder appear in his motel room or his car, so she could really just shut it. He feels stupid enough for leaving it behind at that shitty old house. The help on this job has been less than spectacular, of course a few things are going to slip through the cracks. 

He pulls his car to a stop in the clearing and pauses as he climbs out. This far into the woods, it feels like the sun is a lot further away than it seemed. The tree branches cast long, reaching shadows, and the red front door hangs open to reveal the murky interior. Did they leave the door open when they left?

The Chad shakes his head and slams his car door shut. Most of the third floor is missing from this dump. Of course no one cared if the door was shut. It didn't matter because everything inside was exposed to the elements no matter what. Like it had been for years. He just needs to go inside, find his papers, and get back out. It'll take two minutes.

He still takes the time to have the flashlight on his phone at the ready.

Pushing the door open further, the Chad pauses in the doorway. There are still muddy boot prints on the porch from earlier in the day when he was there with the contractors for the measurements and a basic overview of the property. He leaves the door open to allow the scant daylight inside as he steps in and follows the footprints. At least he can easily see where they went while they were here. Their footprints are the only disturbance in the think dust and dirt blanketing the floor.

In and out of the shadowy rooms the prints go, one giant circle around the first floor. In the back room there are long drag marks in the dust where he had two of the laborers drag a rotting sofa out of the way so they could measure along the wall properly. The cushions are on the floor. He doesn’t... remember the cushions falling off the couch. In fact, the laborers had seemed very concerned with moving the furniture. Everything they’d touched, they wanted to move right back. As if it mattered. As if all of this wasn’t going to be chucked into a bin a hauled away. Hopefully burned to kill whatever might be nesting in it now.

But still. He remembers them being so careful. And whispering to each other, and the only words he remembered hearing enough for them to take room was ‘la dama.’ And they were definitely careful.

“Who cares about the goddamn cushions?” he growls to himself, just to get some noise in the dead quiet of the house. “Just find the folder before Hilda has a heart attack.”

Yes, good. That’s all he needed, just a push in the right direction. A reminder that he’s only here to look for the papers he left so he can get the hell out. Navigating the road out of here in the dark is not on his wish list today.

The floorboards creak under the Chad’s feet as he re-traces his steps through the house, looking on every flat surface. Even though he’s sure he never set anything on top of the refrigerator that leans precariously to one side, he checks. He checks the one surviving shelf in the pantry even though there are no footsteps on that side of the kitchen. Nothing. A crisp white folder with a glossy blue company logo should have stood out like a sore thumb in this dump.

The front room is darker when he finishes the circle. He can still see his car outside, but the sunlight has completely sunk behind the trees and turned the clearing a dusky gray. The light coming in from the door does nothing to help him see inside now, but he still doesn’t close the door. There’s something comfortable about being able to see the way out.

The Chad leans on the doorframe and sighs pulling out his phone. The folder isn’t here. For all he knows, this place is also a crack house once respectable people are gone and someone stole the papers. Probably turned the whole thing into a bunch of joints, and he tells Hilda as much. The air outside is cool on his face as he types on his phone, watching his car. They’ll just get a new crew in there tomorrow and do it again. He can leave and go back to his motel room, come back when the sun is up.

[Are you crazy? -Hilda]

[Rogan will have your head. He wants those numbers for the investors’ breakfast meeting tomorrow. -Hilda]

[I need those specs formatted and in his Inbox by 7 am. -Hilda]

The Chad bites his lip to keep from making an undignified sound. He doesn’t have access to a business-appropriate vocabulary that allows him to articulate this... need to leave. The way the house is so still. And quiet. And things aren’t how they left them, and the sunlight is dying so quickly.

He looks over his shoulder. There are footsteps leading up the stairs, pressed into the dust. He didn’t go up there, but the laborers and the contractor did, just to inventory what needs to be hauled away. The items called aloud by the contractor were a short list. One washing machine. Two bathtubs. Four half-burned mattresses. One metal bed frame.

Stepping back inside, away from the safety of the dimming light and the cool breeze, the Chad moves closer to the stairs, looking up them. There’s a smear in the dust on the fourth stair. A perfect rectangle. His folder. His folder was here.

One of those idiots took it upstairs. Obviously, one of them took it upstairs. Probably to make their inventory list, and then they left it up there. The Chad is going to fire that whole crew for their incompetence, for moving his stuff. For touching it in the first place. But right now he’s going to go get his folder, get the fuck out of here, and send Hilda her goddamn numbers from the safety of his motel room.

The Chad sets a foot on the bottom step and presses cautiously. The stairs creak a little, but they hold. He looks up the staircase, belatedly remembering the parents at the town hall meeting. A girl fell through something in this house, but it wasn’t the stairs. There are no holes. There are plenty of holes above his head, in the floor of the second story, but the stairs seem to have held up. He still holds tightly to the railing as he makes his way up them. On the landing, he looks for the footprints from the work crew and follows them. 

There’s more light on the second floor. It stands bare to the sky above where the third floor ripped away under its own weight as the house burned. Jagged boards jut out against the dim sky, and the exposed cinderblock is stained black. The debris and the towering tree branches above him cast shadows on the floor. The ones in the corner of his vision seem to move.

“Find the folder,” he whispers to himself. The hallway is long, and it’s hard to see the end. The doors on the side that’s still standing are all hanging open into darkness.

Didn’t he hear doors closing up here, before the crew came down earlier?

No, obviously not. They left them this way.

“Folder.” The Chad makes himself take a step into the hallway. And then another. Something hard skitters under his feet, nails or glass that clatters against the baseboards. He winces at the sound of it, too loud in the quiet. Even here, exposed to the sky and the failing light, it’s silent. The air is still to the point of being stifling. Every breath is loud in his ears, hot and unpleasant on his throat.

The first door only has part of the ceiling in tact, casting half the room into shadows. There’s nothing in there but debris. The Chad squints a little until he can make out a few half-charred slats of wood in the rubble. Something that might have been a book. No flat surface, and no folder.

He finds the washing machine the contractor called out. Two of the legs have split the weak floorboards under them, causing them to bow dangerously. Something plastic was stored on the wire shelf above, now a melted mass that droops between the charred slats. He doesn’t touch the black surface to try and discern the color underneath.

He finds the bed frame. The only metal one in the house, apparently, and so the only one to survive. The mattress is burned most of the way through on top, just springs reaching up from the black swirls of metal framing. Balanced on them precariously, is the folder- stark and clean.

The Chad bites back a sob of relief as he hurries into the room, not even bothering to check for holes in the floor. The work crew was in here, this is where they left his goddamn folder. The careless assholes spilled the papers everywhere, too. He’s just so glad he can leave, though, that he might not even mention this in his list of sloppiness when he fires the crew tomorrow.

He snatches the folder and crouches down, snatching up the closest paper. Then the next one, with a sooty handprint smeared on the back. He finds the inventory list. Flipping through the papers, halfway ready to stand up and bolt... he swears. The blueprint with the measurements isn’t there. The paper he needs the most. The Chad hits the ground, not caring if the soot stains his light gray trousers as he fumbles with his flashlight. Twilight has set in over the house and it’s impossible to see clearly, even with only a few slats of the roof in place and the sky hovering overhead. The darkness swallows up most of his flashlight beam as he shines it around. Every other paper was here, it has to be here too.

He crawls forward in an awkward 3-limbed gait, moving the flashlight back and forth slowly. He leans down and hovers the light at the edge of the black maw under the iron bed.

Two points of light shine back at him.

The Chad cries out and stumbles backwards to land hard on his butt. He holds the flashlight out in front of him, ignoring the way the beam wobbles a little. It catches the points again, making them flare slightly pink. But they don’t move like they should if he startled a raccoon or a possum or some other filthy thing. They’re steady. Only the light moves, quivering with the tremors of his hand.

His own breath shallow in his ears, the Chad shifts his weight forward and slowly leans closer. He squints at the heavy shadows under the bed, trying to discern a shape.

“...H-hey,” he manages, then clicks his tongue gently like he’s calling an animal. “Are you... what are you...?”

_Click._

Something hard taps against the wooden floor.

_Scraaaape._

Something heavy slides across the floor, and the points of light move closer. The Chad scrambles back, trying to get his feet under him.

_Click. Scraaaape._

He cries out as he realizes the sound is the thing moving. His knees buckle in the backwards stumble and hit the ground again. He scoots backwards, feeling blindly behind him for something to leverage himself up.

_Click. Scraaaape._

There’s a shape hovering in the shadows, something darker than the space under the bed around it. The points of light that shine in the flashlight are bigger.

A long arm slides out. Skinny. Bony. The flesh sickly gray under the harsh beam of the flashlight.

_Click._

The fingernails are thick and sharp, like claws. Two are broken. They gouge into the wood of the floor, grasping for purchase.

_Scraaaape._

The elbow curls. Thin muscles flex. The thing drags itself forward from under the bed. Long, black hair hangs grimy and heavy around a sallow face. Female, once upon a time. The eyes are fixed on him, staring. Human eyes, dark and focused. Until the light hits them and they flash like an animal caught in the headlights. A second arm emerges.

_Click._

The Chad feels his throat go dry of horrified sounds to make as the thing drags itself forward again. The back is naked, the flesh that same dead color, but then it... stops. As it crawls out from under the bed, nothing follows the waist. The skin is torn and jagged and hangs in loose flaps that drag on the floor. The Chad’s shocked brain tries to recall middle school anatomy lessons the guess what else it is that’s dragging from the ripped torso when he elbow slams into the wall behind him.

_Click. Scraaaape._

Grasping at the wall, he shoves himself to his feet. The phone slips out of his fingers, a sacrifice for two hands of leverage instead of one. It lands with the flashlight shining up at the ceiling in one hard beam.

The thing makes a hard, rattling sound in the throat as the head lifts to stare at the Chad. The flashlight catches it under the chin, casting deep shadows in the hollows under the eyes. The dark eyes shine at him.

It opens its mouth. The jaw clicks and moves a few times with no sound. It rattles again, harsh and frustrated. The fingers flex, pushing the claws deeper into the wood.

“Get. Out.”

There is no one around to hear the screaming.

* * *

The Beacon Hills mall is currently still in the planning stages and considered on indefinite hiatus. The land of the preserve has been deemed unfit for building. No reasons have been specified by the developer.


End file.
